The Calling (30 page)

On Thursday, after Bethany and Mim had spent a few hours tackling another corner of the Sisters’ House, they walked into town to take care of a few errands. Chase had tagged along with them to the Sisters’ House, where the sisters kept slipping him snacks, and then trotted behind the girls as they walked to town. When they reached Main Street, Mim handed Bethany the envelope that contained next week’s Mrs. Miracle column. She was proud of herself for being ahead of her deadline.

“Be sure to ask for my paycheck,” Mim said.

“You mean,
my
paycheck,” Bethany said. “Don’t forget that it’s made out to me.”

Mim frowned. “I’m going to get something at Pearl’s Gift Store. Come on, Chase. We’ll meet you back at this end of Main Street in ten minutes.” Chase’s ears pricked up at the mention of his name. Tongue lolling, tail wagging, he trotted behind Mim.

Bethany went into the
Stoney Ridge Times
office and asked the woman at the receptionist’s desk for the envelopes for Mrs. Miracle. She wasn’t the usual receptionist and peered curiously at Bethany as she handed her the manila envelope. “I’m Penny Williams. I’m a new hire. Just started today. You
can’t be . . . you aren’t . . . Mrs. Miracle?” Her voice was hushed in awe.

“No,” Bethany answered truthfully. “Her true identity is top secret.”

“Of course you couldn’t be Mrs. Miracle. She’s got to be an old woman! Please tell her I love the column. It’s getting a lot of buzz—everyone thinks Mrs. Miracle gives such comforting wisdom.”

Bethany had to bite hard on her lower lip to keep from bursting into laughter. What would Penny Williams say if she knew Mrs. Miracle was a fourteen-year-old!

As the receptionist went to get Mrs. Miracle’s paycheck, Bethany heard the sound of tires screeching, then a blood-chilling scream that sounded like Mim. Bethany dropped the column on the receptionist’s desk and bolted to the door. She ran all the way down Main Street. Her bonnet blew off and a car had to stop short to let her cross the street.

There, lying in the middle of the street, was Chase. Mim was beside herself, shrieking that he’d been hit by a car, tears running down her face as she hovered over the poor dog. Bethany lifted Chase’s head, and his eyes opened but he didn’t even whimper. Between Mim’s sobs she could hear him breathing hard. He was still alive. A crowd of people started to gather and suddenly beside her was Jimmy Fisher. He knelt down and put a hand on Chase’s chest. He looked up at Bethany. “Go get my buggy. It’s in front of the Hay & Grain.” She hesitated, not wanting to leave Chase. “Go now.”

She ran to it and drove the buggy over to where Chase lay. “Hurry, Jimmy. We can get him to the vet.”

But Jimmy didn’t hurry. His hand was still on Chase’s chest. A soft look passed over his face. “I’m sorry. He’s gone.”

Bethany looked at Chase, feeling utterly helpless. Sweet old Chase lay dead. She would not let herself cry, not now. She needed to be strong for her sister. Mim held her hands in tight fists against her mouth.

Jimmy took over and lifted Chase in his arms. “I’ll take him to Eagle Hill and bury him.” Bethany spread a buggy blanket on the floor of the buggy and gently laid Chase on top. As Jimmy guided a stricken Mim into the buggy, Bethany remembered her bonnet and walked down the block to look for it. She found it in the gutter and bent down to pick it up. When she looked up, she noticed Rusty from the Group Home, about one hundred yards away, standing against a tree, watching the whole thing with an unreadable look on her face. Bethany locked eyes with her, until Rusty did a sharp about-face and walked away.

Back at the buggy, Bethany asked Mim if she had seen who had hit Chase. “No. It happened so fast. I was crossing the street and Chase was behind me. The next thing I knew, I heard the sound of a big thump, then a car rushed off.”

“Did you recognize it?” Jimmy asked. “Or the driver?”

Mim shook her head, tears spilling. “I can’t remember the car at all. It happened too fast. All I could think about was Chase, lying there on the ground.” She put her face in her hands. “I should have been watching him more carefully.”

“It’s not your fault, Mim,” Jimmy said. “These things happen.”

“But Mim—”

“Bethany, not now,” Jimmy said sharply. “Hop in.” He helped Mim and Bethany into the buggy, then climbed in and drove them back to the house. He took the dog out, and
Chase drooped in his arms, which started Mim sobbing all over again. “Bethany, where’s a shovel?”

“I’ll get it.” Bethany went to the barn and brought back a shovel. She would not cry. She would not.

Sammy and Luke bolted out of the house, Geena following behind. When they saw Chase in Jimmy’s arms, they stopped abruptly on the porch stairs. It was Luke who pierced Bethany’s heart. Understanding settled over him first, she saw his face go utterly stoic—a strange look on an eleven-year-old boy. His head was up and slightly tilted, his gaze focused on Jimmy, and something about him seemed like their father in every way.

“What’s wrong?” Sammy said, his forehead puckered with worry, his eyes too wide and bright. “What’s wrong with Chase?”

“He’s dead,” Luke said coldly. Sammy burst into sobs. His whole heart shone on his face.

Tears prickled Bethany’s eyes and she bit her lower lip to hold them back.
Not now. Not now.

Geena joined them as they walked to the hill beside the house. Mim said Chase loved to sit on that hill and watch the sheep in their pen, so Jimmy chose a beautiful tree with a large canopy and started to dig. He laid Chase gently, ever so gently, in the hole, then put a big handful of dirt in the boys’ hands. Geena said a few reassuring words about what a good dog Chase was and sang a hymn that no one else recognized, but they liked it. Then they dropped their dirt on the little grave, and made a great ceremony of filling it and piling rocks. By the time the funeral was over, the afternoon was nearly past.

Geena and Mim walked down the hill with Jimmy and Bethany and the boys trailing behind. “I don’t know how
I’ll tell Rose,” Bethany said, about halfway down the hill. “She adored Chase.”

Luke spun around and glared at Bethany. “It’s your fault!”

She stared at him, trying to understand him. “That’s not true, Luke. It’s not true and it’s not fair.”

“With Mom gone, you were supposed to take care of us!”

“Wait a minute!”

Luke’s eyes flashed, and he started to protest, but Bethany wouldn’t let him interrupt. He shook his head as she came up to him.

“Listen to me,” she said. “This was just a terrible accident. It was no one’s fault.”

“It’s your fault!” Luke shouted as he lifted his face. Angry tears filled his eyes. “You should have been watching out for him. You should have stopped this!”

“Luke, I—”

He didn’t wait for her answer. He lurched around and ran back up the hill, disappearing over the ridge.

Bethany worried so about Luke. She knew he was edging up to manhood, his heart sore and lonely with grieving for their father. He’d taken to doing and saying things he’d never have dared to try to get away with when their father was alive. She started to follow, but Jimmy grabbed her arm.

“Let him go. It wasn’t your fault.”

A wave of guilt crashed over Bethany. She was sinking beneath it. “Luke’s right. If I’d been paying attention . . .”

“Don’t think like that. It wasn’t your fault, understand?” He turned her so she had to look at him. “Bethany, did you happen to see that pickup truck that hit Chase?”

“No. I was in the newsp—I was in a store.” She looked up. “You must have, though, if you knew it was a pickup truck.”

“I can’t be sure . . . and I only saw it once before, at twilight. Months ago. It was at Windmill Farm, at Hank Lapp’s birthday party.”

Bethany stilled.
Oh please, no.

“It looked like the same black pickup that Jake Hertzler drove.”

Another warning from Jake.

Later that night, Bethany tiptoed into Luke’s room and sat on his bed. She rubbed his shoulders to soften the ache she knew was there, and to comfort him. “I’m sorry about Chase, Luke. So very sorry.”

Luke wiped his eyes with his pajama sleeve. “There’ll never be another dog like Chase.”

“No. Chase will always be special. But there will be another dog to love. Chase wouldn’t want you to stop loving another dog just because you loved him so much. He’d want you to honor his memory by loving again. We’ll find you a special dog.”

“Chase came to us. We didn’t go to him. That’s the way it is with the best dogs. They find you.”

“Then we’ll be waiting.”

They stayed like that a long time, just listening to Pennsylvania night sounds through the open window—the soft hoot of a great horned owl and the harsh squawk of a Northern Mockingbird and, now and then, the steady clip-clop of a horse pulling a buggy—each of which had their own way of giving comfort.

18

A
fter the long sick worry of a week, Bethany helped Naomi sew a binding on a quilt top on Friday evening and found it strangely calming. As soon as they finished, Naomi wanted to drop it off at the Sisters’ House so it could be wrapped and taken to a fundraising auction in the morning. A full moon cast eerie shadows all around Bethany and Naomi as they drove home from the Sisters’ House in the buggy.

The more time Bethany spent around the sisters, the more amazed she was at their quiet and purposeful lives. Now she understood why their house was a mess—they had better things to do with their time than clean and tidy and iron and dust. And they didn’t just talk about doing things—they did them. They even cared for Bethany’s own mother.

She still didn’t know the story behind that, but she was taking Geena’s advice to sit on it and pray about it. Geena said she would know when the time was right, but so far, nothing. She hoped Geena was right. This praying and expecting and waiting for an answer to come was new to her. She would prefer a burning bush.

“I’m glad for the chill in the air,” Naomi said as Bethany turned the horse down the road. Bethany stopped and looked both ways when they reached the intersection, although she knew there wasn’t a car in sight. She tugged the horse’s reins and murmured, “Tch, tch,” to urge him forward.

All of a sudden, Naomi grabbed her arm. “Look out, Bethany!”

She pulled back on the horse and slammed on the buggy brake, stopping no more than a yard in front of something lying across the road. If Naomi hadn’t spotted it in time, the horse would have tried to jump it and the buggy could have been wrecked. “Shootfire! That was close. What’s in the road?”

“I don’t know.”

They got out of the buggy together and walked to a large tree limb that was lying crossways in the road. “How in the world did that get there?” Bethany looked up. “There aren’t any big trees hanging overhead.”

“Maybe it fell off a truck,” Naomi said. Bethany leaned down to pick up one end of the tree limb and was about to ask Naomi if she would pick up the other when Naomi said, “Something’s not right here. Quick, Bethany. Get back in the buggy. We can go back down the way we came.”

“Why? That’ll take a lot longer to get home.”

“I can’t explain it. I’m just getting a funny feeling.”

“I thought you only got those when you had a headache.”

“Hurry! We need to get out of here!”

She straightened up to see what Naomi was so anxious about, and just as she did, a man emerged out of the cornfield. She opened her mouth to ask for his help, but before she could utter a word, it dawned on her that tree limb wasn’t there by
accident. The man came toward her, slow and deliberate, and stopped just as he reached the buggy headlight. He took a step closer, moving across the beam of the headlight off the buggy, and she saw who it was.

Jake Hertzler.

He walked right up to her and smiled, but his eyes showed no warmth, only a cold, hard gaze. “Hello, Bethany.”

She stood like a statue, frozen to the spot.

“Bethany, who is he?” Naomi asked in a trembling voice.

“I’m Bethany’s boyfriend, Jake Hertzler. Bethany, honey, I’ve come for you.” Jake’s voice was soft and charming, like always, and there was the faint scent of Old Spice aftershave lotion, like always, but he didn’t look the same and he didn’t act the same. He had a strange look on his face that scared her. Something had changed, something essential, deep down. Even then, Bethany thought it was odd that she’d noticed such a thing.